Paris

This past weekend, Chris and I made the trip to Paris.

We flew out Friday night on RyanAir to a small airport about an hour North of Paris. We rode a bus into the city and were dropped off at Porte Maillot. Total travel time was only about 3 hours. Not too shabby.

Upon arriving, it was really a surreal feeling to look up and see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Up until this point, the fact that I was in Europe and could travel so easily hadn't really sunk in yet. I think I'll be able to get used to it.

We had made plans to stay with Adam, my friend from home, who is studying in Paris for Randolph Macon's January Term. Since he didn't have a European cell phone, he just met us at the bus station. We then rode the subway to his amazing hostel, which is just across the Seine from Notre Dame. It was awesome to see Adam in Paris. He was a great host and tour guide, and it was comforting knowing we were sightseeing with a French minor, since I speak no French whatsoever.

That night, we tried to get in touch with a few other friends studying in Paris as well, but we soon found out that in order to call French cell phones, we needed to have activated our roaming capability before leaving Spain. In class earlier that day, we learned a colloquial phrase that basically means "from our screw ups, we learn." Quite fitting, really.

After getting settled in at the hostel, we sampled some of the Parisian nightlife, but made it a fairly early night so we could pack in as much sightseeing as possible on Saturday.

Saturday
Breakfast was purchased from the grocery store around the corner, and consisted of a premade ham and cheese sandwich and a liter of orange juice. I'm just really trying to avoid scurvy while I'm here.

Our first stop was the Louvre. Since we wanted to do as much as possible in two days, we breezed through most of the galleries and hit the major works like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The greatest part of the trip occurred as were exiting the Louvre through the hall with the inverted glass pyramid when I heard someone shout "Danny Eckstein?!". Lo and behold it's none other than Annie Barnes, a friend from home studying in Florence this Spring. We just happened to pick the same weekend to go to Paris and the same time to see the Louvre. It was really bizarre, but great to see Annie as well. I hope to make it Florence later in the Spring, and she's coming to Spain in a few weeks, so hopefully we'll have the chance for a few more European run-ins.

The rest of the day was spent seeing most of the sights on the Left and Right banks East, including Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, the Pantheon.

Most importantly, we had crepes for lunch.

That night, we met up with Adam's friends from his program and went out in the section of the city where most students go. It was a good night, although going out in Paris isn't exactly cheap.

On Sunday, I finally got in touch with my friend Lizzy from UVa, once we realized that one of Adam's friends had a French cell phone. We're pretty clever. We met up with her at Les Invalides, and then went over to the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed it. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower. We climbed that, too.

I realized that being a tourist basically involves just paying a lot of money to go up tall things. I'm going to try to diversify my activities, maybe.

The Eiffel Tower took a really really really long time. Our bus back to the airport wasn't leaving till 5:40, so we weren't worried until it dawned on us at the top of the Tower that there would be an equally long line to go back down. Once back on solid ground, we booked it back to Lizzy's apt (where we had left our backpacks) and then hopped on the subway at 5:30. Needless to say, we were pushing it. Once we got to our stop, we sprinted out of the station, dodged four lanes of traffic, and finally got to the bus station.

Then, we remembered that this is Europe and things don't really leave on time. The bus didn't leave for another 20 minutes. At least we got in some exercise?

The ride back to the airport was fine, the flight was smooth, and we arrived back in 60 degrees Valencia around 10 PM.

It was a whirlwind of a trip, but a great way to start the European travels.